davidmartin wrote: ↑Tue Nov 14, 2023 2:50 pm
the description mystery cult context of Christianity might apply to the type found in the epistles its not clear if its the earliest type then if the role of the women is still there its as messengers of it continuing after loss of the leader, viz they were the true believers. it doesn't matter if later the story got adapted and looks more mystery cult-ish. question is, is there is hidden layer. i see one, i understand why a lot don't it's a matter of opinion i guess
I think the mystery cult influence on these stories about Jesus happened at least by the time of Paul's letters. So I think the Gospels are likely also influenced by mystery cults. I don't think the women finding the empty tomb goes back to any historical event. There are two reasons why Mark came up with this story:
1) As I already mentioned, the mourning women are always closely related to the death and resurrection of the savior deity in mystery cults
2) Mark wants to tell a missing body story. The women in the story are there to find the tomb empty. Stories of bodies going missing were told to show that the person was translated/raised to heaven. These were pretty common in Greco-Roman culture.
Greek Resurrection Beliefs and the Success of Christianity (Palgrave Macmillan,2009), Dag Øistein Endsjø:
As we have seen, such examples of missing bodies indicating some form of physical immortalization were legion. If he had a Hellenistic audience in mind, Mark really could have certain expectations as to what they would believe. A body missing in some miraculous way represented in itself a powerful topos in the Hellenistic world, an indication that the body could have been physically immortalized. Comparing the various gospels, Eugene Boring, Klaus Berger, and Carsten Colpe point to possible parallels in the physical disappearance and subsequent immortalization of Heracles, Romulus, and Aristeas. As Adela Yarbro Collins argues, “The narrative pattern according to which Jesus died, was buried, and then translated to heaven was a culturally defined way for an author living in the first century to narrate the resurrection of Jesus.” As we have already witnessed, Heracles, Achilles, and Memnon all disappeared from their funeral pyres as they were made immortal, while the dead body of Alcmene was miraculously replaced by a large stone. The historical incidents of Aristeas of Proconnesus, Cleomedes of Astypalaea, Romulus, and perhaps also King Croesus and his daughters demonstrate how beliefs in physical immortality were still connected with a missing body. The empty tomb really was crucial to this narrative. The absence of a body had for centuries been something indicating physical immortalization. If there were any grave of Jesus, it had to be empty. For if the tomb was not empty, there could be no question of physical continuity, and thus it would be impossible to assume that any resurrection had taken place at all according to Greek assumptions.
The Origins of Early Christian Literature: Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2021), Robyn Faith Walsh:
The “empty tomb” or supernaturally missing corpse, for instance, is quite intelligible as a “convention in Hellenistic and Roman narrative” acknowledged by ancient writers and critics. Plutarch discusses the motif at length, citing the missing Alcmene, Aristeas of Proconnesus, Cleomedes the Astypalaean, and Romulus, calling it an established mythic tale among writers and one that “all the Greeks tell” (Vit. Rom. 28.4). Indeed, Plutarch’s subsequent analysis of Romulus’ missing corpse, and its associated motif, elicits numerous points of contact with literary and popular imagination, including the gospels. From cataclysms and darkness to an ascension and/or deification, recognition of divine status as a “son of god,” brilliant or shining manifestations, awe and fear over the events, a commission to report what transpired, and eyewitnesses, the formulaic elements of these stories were well established.
To Plutarch’s exhaustive list of missing mortals, Miller compiles no fewer than twenty-nine additional examples throughout Hellenistic and Roman literature of figures who have “disappeared and were worshipped as a ... god,” many of which have more than one known literary reference. Of this list he does not cite examples from the novels, which include embellishments and details also echoed in the gospel accounts, such as the displaced stone at the grave’s entrance...
The remarkable ubiquity of this motif and, evidently, the frequency with which it was recognized in popular imagination demonstrates that, while the bodily ascension of Moses or Elijah may have been one point of reference for Jesus’ empty tomb, the topos was also well established elsewhere in Greek and Roman literature. Later church fathers like Justin Martyr, Origen, Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Arnobius, and competitors like Celsus all acknowledged that “the early Christians patterned Jesus’ resurrection tale after the Roman imperial and Greek heroic, mythographic tradition.” The empty tomb trope in particular was a compelling and dramatic touchstone for communicating the “translation fable” of the mortal who becomes a hero-sage or god. Notable “missing” figures like Romulus, Alexander the Great, Castor and Pollux, Herakles, or Asclepius helped to make the empty tomb palatable for readers of the gospels – a clear illustration of Jesus’ new supernatural status. In his work on Paul and myth-making, Stowers notes that myths like that of Herakles, his missing body, and conquering of death would have helped contextualize Paul’s message about the new, pneumatic body of Christ. For creative writers, this kind of association also generated an opportunity for novel approaches to an established topos. The rolled-away stone from the tomb in the gospels and Chariton’s novel heighten mystery and expectation. The missing body illustrates that the absent corpse is now a god or godlike with or without explicit explanation.